At a butcher shop in Jeromesville, Ohio, four meat processors situate their labor within their own minds and bodies.

Directed by Lydia Cornett

Music composed and performed by Lydia Cornett

Slamdance Film Festival 2023
Ann Arbor Film Festival 2023
(Winner of the Tom Berman Award for Most Promising Filmmaker)

Running time: 7 minutes

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When the film premiered in January 2023 at Slamdance, Stephen Saito of Moveable Feast interviewed director Lydia Cornett. Here is a portion of the interview:

Saito: It is an unspoken part of the beauty of Lydia Cornett’s latest short “Fleshwork” that the director has reconciled her own professional pursuits, not only behind the camera for the film but scoring it as well, drawing on her original plans to be a violinist before diving into observational documentary. The nimble plucking of strings in parallel with long strides of the bow magnificently reflects the complicated relationship that the employees at Heffelfinger’s Meat Market in Ohio might not fully be capable of articulating themselves, couching any pride they have in the precision of their work or the service they provide in the knowledge of its public perception. (As one says, it’s more comfortable to call himself a “meat processor.”) With the film shot in stark black-and-white with bursts of red occasionally overwhelming the square frame, Cornett cleverly finds a way to acknowledge the grisly business yet leave judgment about its ethics to an audience and allow for an appreciation of the labor involved >>>